Disaster Tech
From Kosovo to California, new technology comes to the aid of disaster workers

By Diane Sussman
Photo: Photodisc
October 7, 1999

In the tumultuous wake of the 1994 Northridge earthquake, emergency management officials sent an urgent plea to Contra Costa County for 500 nurses. “And we had to do it relying on phones, paper, and faxes,” said Barbara Center, trauma coordinator for Contra Costa County.

Next time, Center and her colleagues won’t lose precious time waiting for faxes and phone calls, thanks to a new statewide satellite communications system known as the Resource Information Management System. With RIMS, state and local disaster relief officials can instantaneously track data on manpower needs and equipment shortages—and whether area hospitals are up and running.

“I hesitate to say it will solve all our problems in an emergency—what ever will?—but it should take some of the confusion out of the situation,” said Art Lathrop, emergency medical services director for Contra Costa County. “It will allow for a more up-to-date picture than we’ve had in the past.”

RIMS is one of the latest in a series of technological advances being employed to help hospitals, health officials, and disaster relief workers coordinate efforts despite crippled services and obliterated power lines. “Our worst nightmare is having lines wiped out,” said Jim Lott, executive vice president of policy development for the Healthcare Association of Southern California (HASC). “But that’s what we have to prepare for.”

Satellite systems

Claudia Niersbach, RN, spokesperson for the Emergency Nurses Association in Park Ridge, Ill., applauds any technology that brings hospitals in the loop of disaster communications. All too often in the past, hospitals were left out of the communications technology sweepstakes, she said. “A lot of times we were the last to know [what patients were on their way],” she said. “Hospitals need to be in the loop.”

After the Northridge earthquake the HASC developed ReddiNet II, a computerized microwave radio system that links local hospitals with county emergency centers, fire departments, paramedics, and each other. In a crisis, hospitals can instantaneously send word of gridlocked emergency rooms, open beds, or damaged buildings. “Hospitals will be able to communicate with each other instantly, without making nine phone calls,” Lathrop said. “It won’t create more hospital beds, but it will help hospitals keep track of where resources are available.” Los Angeles and San Diego have used the system for about five years, and two Northern California counties plan to add the technology by next year.

From the perspective of the paramedics in the field, ReddiNet II is just faster, Lathrop said. “It eliminates the need for several phone calls,” he said. “I can’t tell you the number of times you call the hospital and the person you need to talk to is busy with a patient.”

Unlike RIMS, which Lathrop calls “just a computer and Lotus software,” ReddiNet II is expensive—about $28,000 to install at each site. To justify the cost, hospitals and emergency centers are using the technology for less cataclysmic events such as tracking inundated emergency rooms during flu season and the supply of emergency room beds. “It’s useful for everyday events,” Lathrop said. “The bonus is disaster preparedness.”

The biggest selling point is that Reddi-Net II bypasses phone lines which, if downed, can wipe out Internet-based communications systems. “Everyone says the Internet, the Internet, the Internet. But until the Internet becomes satellite-based, it might not be there in an emergency,” Lott said.

Internet technology

The Internet did offer technological salvation for the American Red Cross last June when officials were scrambling to find and unite Kosovo refugees. Many of the refugees had been stripped of identification and scattered across two countries and several continents.

A program called the Displaced Persons Linking System was quickly developed for the American Red Cross by Oracle Corp. at no charge. Using a computerized form, refugees at Fort Dix, Texas, were able to enter vital information about the people they were seeking, including names, addresses, personal characteristics, and photographs. Red Cross workers in remote locations and at refugee camps—equipped with nothing more than a laptop—could then access the information remotely.

The technology was a boon to the agency, which conducts tens of thousands of relief operations each year. The agency matched two families the first day of operation and nine more since then. “When you have hundreds of thousands of people displaced, with one family member in one camp and one family member in another, even having one family united is a success,” said Mike Fulwinder, spokesperson for the American Red Cross.